Stanley Elkin: Boswell

“So?” Malley asks.

“So? So what’s so special about a boxer? Why just a boxer? The public don’t know nothing. Do you mean to tell me you don’t think a runner’s springs ain’t just as lethal?”

“Or his breath?” I say, thinking of Lacey’s lungs.

“Wise guy,” Lacey says with cheery contempt.

“A golfer’s club, that’s lethal too. That’s a weapon,” Flambeau says.

“A forward’s set shot,” Levine contributes.

“A wrestler’s sweat suit,” Malley says.

“A jockey’s horse,” says Peterson.

“Kiss mine,” Lacey says.

“Oh, come on, Lacey,” Lyman Necchi says. “Do you think that if a golfer clubbed somebody with his number nine iron he wouldn’t be arrested? Is that what you think? What’s the matter with you?”

“That’s not the point. It specifically mentions a boxer’s hands in the law books, and it don’t say nothing about a golfer’s number nine iron.”

“Lacey’s right,” Flambeau says.

“‘Lacey’s right, Lacey’s right,’” Marty Penner mimics. Penner is my friend — at least I think he would be if we ever saw each other outside the gym. He lifts weights, too, but he has contempt for it. He does it, he has told me, because, like me, he is afraid of death. He feels he must keep in shape. But he does not come to the gym every day; he is not really a regular. Often he watches me as I press the bar bells. I know he hears me as I pull at the weights and murmur the little incantation which helps me to raise them: “Because my heart is pure. Because my heart is pure.”

The others finish dressing and one by one drift off to their homes, their bowling alleys, their pool parlors. But I move slowly. I remain behind lacing my shoes, and Penner paces his dressing to match mine.

Lacey works on a spit curl in front of the mirror and then turns to us. “See you guys tomorrow,” he says.

“Good night, Lacey.”

Lacey nods to me and walks off.

“Hey, Lacey,” Penner calls.

Lacey turns and looks back down the row of lockers. “Yeah?”

“You’re a prick. Good night.”

Lacey waves.

Penner sits down. “Have you heard anything about a job?” he asks.

“No.”

“What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. It’s winter. I guess all the action is down in Sarasota at the winter quarters.”

“You going down?”

“I don’t think so. I’d feel like a jerk. How do you apply to be a strong man? What do you do? A routine? I can just see some guy watching me in a tent someplace while I audition. ‘Yeah, kid. You’re strong but you ain’t powerful, you know what I mean?’ It’s nutty. Who needs it?”

Penner smiled.

“The Great Sandusky is in town,” I said.

“Sure,” Penner said “Call him.”

I shrugged. “I guess.”

Penner buttoned the big walnut buttons on his car coat. “Let me know what happens,” he said and went out.

“Sure,” I said. I gave a final tug at my lace and it broke. (I am always breaking my shoelaces.) I took a lace from one of my gym shoes and put it in the street shoe. When I got up to go I turned to Baby Joe, who was locking up his towel cage. “Hey, Baby Joe,” I said.

“Yeah?”

“How long do you think that cage would last if a big strong guy like me went to work on it?”

“You horse, I’ll know who done it,” he called after me.

I don’t mean to give a false impression. There are men who in the presence of madness become polite, sedate. Men who hear old ladies out, who listen to their fixed and mad ideas — sunspots, Hitler living on some Brazilian beach, the end of the world — and stand back, uncommitted but very polite. Of course you know where their hearts are and what they think of those old girls. The politeness is just aloof contempt. Not with me. I am listening. My mind is open, my contempt is not aloof. If it turns out that she is mad after all, I may not argue her out of it. There is too little time and too many old ladies. With me it’s a question of conservation, of human economy. There will be other old ladies I have to answer. In a girl’s arms and the girl has pimples and her breath is foul and the room is hot and the sheets are sticky and I’m tired anyway and the girl looks up and asks, “Jimmy, do you love me?”, I would not just say “Yes” or “Sure thing,” or, prizing my crummy little integrity, tell her “No” and list the reasons. I would make a pitch. And that’s my crummy little integrity, my Boswellness. What I mean is, I horse around when I have the chance. For an idolator I am no respector of persons save my own.

Uncle Myles was a bachelor and a lawyer and a Mason and a delegate to the Republican Convention and a deacon in the church and an honorary member of the Fire Department and a Friend of the Museum. He had charge accounts in all the department stores in our city and one in Weber and Heilbroner in New York and in Marshall Field in Chicago and Neiman-Marcus in Dallas and I. Magnin in San Francisco and Kauffman’s in Pittsburgh. Were he alive today he would carry in his wallet credit cards from all the major oil companies. It goes without saying that he would be a member of the Diner’s Club and Carte Blanche and all the rest. What he did not have was a season ticket to the ballpark and a subscribed box at the symphony and a book-club membership. He did not have them because they cost money, and my uncle did not have that either. He held the charge accounts because his credit was so good, and his credit was good because he never bought anything. He would have liked to — and that helped me to love him. Really, my uncle was not so different from myself. With me it was men; with him it was institutions. So I guess in an odd, collective way that made him a men man too.

As I have said, my uncle was a lawyer. A defending and defending attorney. He never made very much from it, though. Not that he defended lecherous old Negroes in Mississippi for winking at some passing white lady, or spun stately theories to night-school classes. No, he did not do very well because he was convulsive and trembled before the jury at the wrong time, and because he was a sort of civil-rights lawyer in reverse. He took the side of the Establishment in all things; indeed, he took the side of all Establishments. The Establishment rarely needs legal defending, and when it does it has the services of lawyers who do not shake. So my uncle, who was a regular himself, and an honorary member of the Fire Department and a Friend of the Museum, was left with the irregulars — defending, as it were, lecherous whites who winked at passing Negresses.

But my uncle was no fool. His arguments were better than mine, and I was afraid of them. I had lied to Marty Penner: I hadn’t gone to Sarasota because I couldn’t make up my mind to leave my uncle. Actually, I had become so accustomed to my guardians dying out from under me that I wasn’t prepared to do the leaving myself.

I went home on the bus. From the street I could tell that the apartment was dark, and I was grateful. My uncle sometimes went out alone at night. He had friends, I suppose. Everyone does. When I entered the apartment the house was quiet, and again I was relieved. I notice I frequently feel relief when people I am supposed to love leave me to myself. Bonner is right. Such a weight is the burden of love that the human being, even a strong man like myself, must put it down every so often. Women do not understand this; they are hurt when you hint it, and I suppose it is because they do not love as much or as strenuously as we do.

I went into my room and lay down. I had exercised heavily that day and I was tired. I was almost asleep when I heard a noise coming from my uncle’s room. It sounded like someone making violent love. The bed- springs were squawking in a steady passion. Could my uncle have a woman in his room? The idea saddened me, as other people’s lovemaking always does. When after about ten minutes the sounds still hadn’t stopped, I began to worry; I was certain it was a woman and that my uncle was humiliating himself on her. Then, of course, I realized how stupid I was. He was sick. I got out of bed and raced into his room. I snapped on the light.